The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) - final remarks

Anyone who has visited the blog long enough knows that "The Curse of Frankenstein" is one of the all-time favorites of mine. Or at the very least, I think I've discussed it as much if not more than most films or television ever to appear on the blog. I guess many might say that the film really doesn't necessarily feature that much content worthy of so much dedication, but I always seem to find something more for myself to enjoy or to chew on. But at this point in the blog's ten year history, I guess something gotta give. I'll still watch it almost every year. I think I missed it last year for the first time since, gosh, probably 2005 or 2006. I didn't have much left to say. I had nothing at all to say about Lee. He's the ghoul with no soul that kills. Karloff, Lee was not meant to emulate.

• Seeing Paul Krempe just kvetch without telling Elizabeth what Victor is always up to in his laboratory, I guess one could critically hold him accountable for not just spilling it so that the horrors that do unfold (several are killed, including an old blind man, his grandson, and the Baron's maid) could have been averted.

• I can only imagine when Cushing's Baron just gets up in Paul's face and mockingly says that he will continue to conduct his experiments no matter the brains destroyed and his involvement or not, the heat he generates from movie-goers was nuclear. What a heat magnet performance. For the exception of his loathsome Baron in "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed", I can't think of a Cushing villain more contemptible. When he laughs in his pregnant maid lover's face as she takes him to task for dumping her for Elizabeth, that sort of devil-may-care, bullying creep who pokes at her for ever believing he cared anything about her, Cushing is rarely more vile....except when he traps her in his lab with the Monster that ends up killing her.

• And how the Baron uses Elizabeth's well being to goad Paul, thinking her safety would lure him to stay and help continue the experiments in making the perfect Monster, nothing of any value compares to his work; it shows you a significant difference in the two versions of the Baron, Hammer's as opposed to Universal's

• And to think, Frankenstein gives the Priest in his Death Row Gallows cell the rundown, he tells him the entire story, so he admits to creating the Monster and being involved in the maid's death.

• What I always enjoyed about this version is that Cushing is the Monster. Even when you go back to Whale's Frankenstein films, Colin Clive's Baron is never truly evil. He's obsessed and that obsessiveness does him no favors. But Cushing's Baron is bad news. He sees the experiments as above everything and one else. Elizabeth just wants to spend time with him, and he finds only importance, attention, and mindspace for his work. Clive's Baron at least loved his woman, although his work took precedence because the obsession to create life was treated as "he lost his way". But while Elizabeth was growing up away, receiving payment to live with her mother by Victor Frankenstein, he was learning and growing up with Paul. Paul's affection and care for Victor was mainly for the young student he helped to mentor, the young man he helped to bring life back to a dead puppy, but the Baron that ultimately decides the Monster is more vital than anything else is not the boy he nurtured into a brilliant scientist. Paul considers their experiments into bringing life back to the dead the beginning of the end.

• I realize she doesn't get a lot to do but look beautiful, Hazel Court still has her place in history in my opinion. She was left in the dark, not told of what was going on, and because Paul couldn't seem to get up the courage to tell her about Victor's ghoulish activities in the lab, Court's Elizabeth is placed in peril by film's end. And her welfare was always a point of emphasis Victor used to keep Paul at bay, until he could no longer tolerate the Monster's threat to mankind at large.

• Director Fisher with that guillotine. He returned to that with "Frankenstein Created Woman". It is quite a visual device that would seem to indicate that the Baron had to be punished for all his bad deeds. Of course, you can't keep the Baron down. He's always got work to do!